In recent years, the processing of poultry such as chickens and turkeys has become highly automated, with the birds being conveyed suspended by their legs from overhead conveying systems along processing lines for evisceration, cut-up, and further processing. It is highly desirable to perform as many of the processing steps on the birds as possible while the birds are suspended from their overhead conveying lines to minimize handling and ensure greater uniformity in the cutting up and processing of the birds. Accordingly, the birds are conveyed into engagement with various processing apparatus while they move in series suspended from the overhead conveying system along a processing line. For example, the birds can be de-feathered, decapitated, opened, eviscerated, and cut apart while advanced progressively through a poultry processing plant suspended from an overhead conveyor line. As a result, the labor required for processing poultry carcasses has been significantly reduced while uniformity and adjustability in the sectioning of the poultry carcasses into various parts has increased.
Recently, a growing trend in snack foods has been the increasing popularity of chicken wings, often called "Buffalo Wings". These are especially popular as appetizers or snack foods served in bars. Additionally, chicken wings have become a popular takeout item for home consumption and restaurants and fast food outlets. As wings have become more popular, however, consumers now demand larger and meatier wings. This extra meat must necessarily be taken from the breast and back portions of the birds. Accordingly, care must be taken to insure that a precise desired quantity of meat is pulled from each breast as the wings are removed to meet the specifications of the retailers purchasing the wings. To ensure efficiency and proper cooking of the wings, it is important to retailers such as fast food outlets that all the wings being cooked be of substantially the same weight. Larger wings do not cook as fast as smaller wings, and thus there is a possibility that the larger wings of a batch with smaller wings will be undercooked or that the smaller wings in a batch with larger wings will be overcooked. The result is poor quality product that generally is discarded. Accordingly, it is important that precise, equal amounts of breast meat be removed with the wings from the poultry carcass to ensure that each wing and its attached breast meat will be of a substantially equal size and weight.
Formerly, the removal of the wings of the birds was largely done by hand or by stand alone wing removal machines. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,993,115 of Hazenbroek discloses a compact wing cutoff machine for removing the wings from the carcasses of poultry with a minimal amount of breast meat being removed therewith. Automated poultry wing removal apparatus have been developed for severing or cutting the wings from poultry carcasses as the poultry carcasses are suspended from an overhead conveyor system and are conveyed through a processing plant. An example of such an apparatus is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,597,136 of Hazenbroek.
Such automated wing removal apparatus, generally have, however, been limited to removing and cutting up of the wings without requiring additional breast meat to remain attached to the wings. Thus, conventional automated wing removal apparatus typically have not been able to remove the wings with a precise amount of breast meat being removed therewith to ensure uniformity of the size of the wings as required by most fast food retailers. Such conventional wing removal apparatus further are not designed to accommodate birds of varying sizes for removal of the wings therefrom with substantially equal amounts of meat from the breasts, backs, and/or shoulders being removed therewith.
Accordingly, it can be seen that a need exists for a method and apparatus for cleanly and accurately removing the wings from the carcasses of birds as the birds are conveyed by an overhead conveyor system through a poultry processing plant, with a desired, substantially equal amount of breast meat automatically removed from the carcasses with the removal of the wings.